So Good To Hear From You!

When I made the decision to move to NLR, it was almost a no brainer. However, I did not bother to notify my blood kin as it did not really seem to be necessary. It did not seem to matter if I was in town or not and our interaction was almost non- existent. Gal Pal and the Lunch Lady seemed to be the only ones to be emotionally affected by my leaving, but both encouraged me to go for it and to do what was right for me. I am very glad that I did. Shortly after my arrival here I put together a little newsletter to my friends and family to let them know of my relocation. I purged my Yahoo address book of insignificant entries and created a "VIP" list to whom I wanted to send the newsletter. The list included some people from whom I have not heard in some time as well as my blood kin and many friends I have made here at Nichevo. I have received many responses to the newsletter from friends with whom I speak regularly and from some of the ones I had not heard from in awhile. Not surprising is the fact that none of my relatives have responded. I would guess that means it is OK, out of site, out of mind, oh what a relief it is to them. So onward and upward.

As I posted yesterday, I had the day off to rest and recharge for the busy week ahead and that is just what I did. Napping several times while catching up on the things I have not been able to get to and surfing the Internet as I usually do in my off times. Late in the afternoon I checked my email and I received a missive from an old friend of Nichevo who I met on line when I first started blogging but who had seemingly dropped off the face of the earth as our regular correspondence just suddenly stopped. I really did think I had done something to make him mad but for the life of me could not figure what I had done. It turns out I was wrong, I had not done anything to upset him, but he had suffered some set backs in his health and has been a long time recovering. I was thrilled when I saw that I had a message from him in my in box and I immediately opened his message. The contents of the message were private so I will not share that here, let's just say I was very happy to hear from him. I replied in a rather long winded email which I hope does not tire him too greatly to read. I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish him a rapid recovery from his ailments and offer him my thoughts and prayers in that regard. He really is a remarkable individual that had much to do with inspiring many of the earliest posts here, especially that first Christmas post I worked so hard on. This last Christmas was a much lessor holiday because he and I were not in contact. But we have reestablished that contact for which I am thankful. It just goes to show when you take the chance at inclusion, the rewards are more than worth the effort. If only more people could learn that lesson the world would be a better place. I know my world is a better place with my friend included in it. Here's to you my friend, may your return to health be rapid, your heart warmed by the love flowing in your direction and your gingerbread always be sweet.

I did have some difficulty when selecting the photos for today's eye candy section. It seems the Blog This feature in Picasa was not functioning properly as it would not easily upload photos to Blogger, failing to do so 9 times out of 10. So I went looking for a solution as I know you guys love the eye candy section of my posts. The solution itself was surprisingly simple in its execution. I have a file on my hard drive that I use as a temp file for photo manipulation, so I loaded a bunch of photos to that file and then uploaded them to a web album with Picasa and then created a slide show which I have embedded below. Hopefully Blogger and Picasa will get over their little spat and start communicating again soon, after all they are both Google applications. But then since when does being in the same family mean everything is 100 percent harmonious, huh? At any rate, the slide show is made and you guys will have your eye candy. Until next time as always, Enjoy!